Le Monde editor 'defamed Jews'

A French appeal court has found the editor-in-chief of Le Monde and the authors of an opinion piece in the paper guilty of "racial defamation" against Israel and the Jewish people.

In a ruling greeted with applause by Jewish groups and some alarm by media lawyers, the court ordered Jean-Marie Colombani and the three writers to pay a symbolic one euro in damages to the France-Israel Association and to Lawyers Without Borders.

The two groups had alleged that the June 2002 article, headed Israel-Palestine: the Cancer, contained comments that "targeted a whole nation, or a religious group in its quasi-globality", and constituted racial defamation.

The offence was exacerbated, the groups said, by a "semantic slip" from the phrase "the Jews of Israel" to "Jews in general"; in other words, it referred to "the Jews" when it meant "certain Israelis".

France, which has the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in western Europe, has seen tensions rise in recent years in parallel with the increase in violence in the Middle East. The French media are routinely accused of pro-Palestinian bias.

Mr Colombani and the authors of the article - Edgar Morin, a sociologist; Daniele Sallenave, a writer and lecturer; and a French MEP, Sami Nair - argued that the extracts had been taken out of context from "a lengthy and more balanced piece" that "did not undermine or attack the fundamental values of democratic societies".

But the appeals court overturned a lower court ruling, deciding last week that two passages did constitute a breach of France's strict defamation law.

The first passage read: "It is hard to imagine that a nation of fugitives born of a people who have been subjected to the longest persecution in the history of humanity, who have suffered the worst humiliation and the worst contempt, should be capable, in the space of two generations, of transforming themselves into a people sure of themselves and dominating (of others) and, with the exception of an admirable minority, a scornful people that takes satisfaction in humiliating others."

The second continued: "The Jews of Israel, descendants of an apartheid named the ghetto, ghettoise the Palestinians. The Jews who were humiliated, scorned and persecuted humiliate, scorn and persecute the Palestinians. The Jews who were the victims of a pitiless order impose their pitiless order on the Palestinians. The Jews, scapegoats for every wrong, make scapegoats of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority."

The French umbrella group for Jewish associations, CRIF, said it "noted with satisfaction" the appeal court ruling, adding that the verdict "clearly set limits on a deviation that consists of incriminating 'the Jews' in the name of a criticism of Israel".

The group added: "We have always considered that criticism of Israeli policy falls under the category of the free and democratic exchange of ideas, but that debate cannot express itself as a demonisation of Israel nor of the Jews."

Lawyers were divided over the significance of the decision. Catherine Cohen, who acted for Le Monde and Mr Nair, said she was taking the ruling to France's highest court because "we cannot allow jurisprudence like this to stand. The article was a critique of a policy, of [Israeli prime minister Ariel] Sharon's policy, it wasn't a racial criticism. The remarks were taken out of context; the plaintiffs argued that they were against Jews, but a few paragraphs later, the piece says that all occupiers behave the same way.

"This is a very serious matter for intellectuals, for commen tators who express their point of view on a very complex issue. Of course these authors are not anti-Jewish, nobody believes that. In reality, this kind of case does not belong in a court of law - the groups should have written their own rebuttal in the paper."

But Georges Kiejman, who defended Mr Morin (who is Jewish), said he did not think the decision would prevent free and frank debate on the Middle East question in France.

"The court made plain that it found the text as a whole constituted a very potent critique, but a perfectly tolerable one given the complexity of the situation," he said. "It was just those two passages that were picked out. All it means is people are going to have to re-read their copy a bit more carefully; be very careful not to talk about 'the Jews', for example, but about 'some Israelis'."